Price tags are commonly used by the retail industry to provide information relating to the merchandise the price tags are attached to. Such information may include the price and Universal Product Code of the merchandise, the manufacturer of the merchandise, merchandise care instructions, and merchandise rebate or registration information.
Typically, merchandise is priced differently depending on where the merchandise is sold. For example, stores in Northern Europe will typically have prices higher than that of those in Southern Europe, despite the fact that all countries in Europe have adopted the Euro.
To combat this issue, stores have resorted to double price tags having a perforation separating two price tags, with each separate price tag having a different price. However this approach presents a couple of issues. First, a worker separating the double price tag must take extra care not to damage the price tag as he or she separates the price tag along the perforation. Although the perforation in the double price tag assists the worker in making a relatively clean tear, there still exists a chance that the double price tag will tear outside the perforation, thus necessitating the worker to attach a new double price tag to the merchandise and again attempt to cleanly tear the new double price tag along the perforation. Second, the tearing of the double price tag along the perforation does not necessarily lend to the tidiest appearance. Even if a worker takes extra care to cleanly tear the double price tag along the perforation, the perforated edge still appears ragged, and thus unsightly.
Another problem similar to the one presented above in regards to the multiple pricing system found in Europe relates to seasonal merchandise and trend setting merchandise. Typically, this type of merchandise has a very limited sellable “shelf life”. Once the season has changed, or the fashion world has moved on to another trend, the merchandise must be marked down to a lower price point in order for the merchandise to be cleared from the sales floor to make room for the new fashion trend and/or the new season of merchandise.
Retail stores typically utilize “pricing guns” to mark down the price of merchandise. However, this approach also presents several issues. First, there exists a risk that customers may peel of the marked down price and place that marked down price on a higher priced item. Second, the retail store must keep additional supplies on hand in the store specifically for the purpose of operating the pricing gun. Such supplies may include extra pricing gun parts to repair a broken pricing gun, rolls of price tags for the pricing gun to mark the lower price on, and ink cartridges to allow the pricing gun to mark the price tags. These additional supplies may clutter the retail store, or maybe become lost, thereby rendering the pricing gun nonfunctional. Third, the use of tagging guns leads to an unsightly appearance of the merchandise. The price tags created by the tagging guns rarely mimics the appearance of the price tag provided by the merchandise manufacturer. Accordingly, once a price tag created by a tagging gun is applied to the price tag provided the merchandise manufacturer, the manufacturer's price tag may become cluttered looking.
Therefore, what is needed is an improved price tag and a method of manufacturing the improved price tag.